In the Still of the Night
by onekisstotakewithmex
Summary: "In hindsight, it's his opinion that it's all Peg's fault." Featuring a package from home for BJ, a mountain of guilt for Hawkeye, and a little more to drink than either had bargained for, all culminating in some drunk shenanigans. Oh and imitating Charles. Or essentially, Hawkeye Pierce is in love, and drinks to cope with it. Hawkeye x BJ, set during Charles's time at the 4077 M/M


In hindsight, it's his opinion that it's all Peg's fault.

Peg and her damn package and her damn thoughtfulness that extends not only to her damn husband but to him, dammit.

Mail call has come and gone, a package dropped on BJ's bed while they were all in surgery, and now it's a typical summer evening in Korea, the taste of dust and the tang of blood lingering in the back of Hawkeye's throat.

As he eyes the package, sitting like a live grenade on Beej's bunk, Hawkeye gets the urge to chase the lump of blood and dust and unresolved feelings in the back of his throat with a sorry excuse for a martini. Every new package and letter from Peg serve only to remind BJ that he's five thousand miles away from his white picket fence life.

BJ walks in, and as Hawkeye expected, his face lights up when he sees the package on his cot. Hawkeye buries himself in a martini, and thinks, a little wryly, _it's not even my marriage and it's driving me to drink._

"Mail call, soldier," he tells Beej, who is freshly showered and squeaky clean, all sunshine and warmth in his clean fatigues, a stark contrast to Hawk, who is in the same clothes he's been wearing for three days, layered with bits of Korea and the blood of kids, and yesterday's booze. "Rough day at the office, dear?"

BJ leaps onto the cot, grabbing the package like a kid at Christmas, and as Hawk sips his eye-watering hellbrew, he wonders if he could ever put a look like that on his best friend's face.

Hawk sits down next to him, passing him a martini, already made the way Beej doesn't like it. "Your drink, sir. I saw you at the bar, and couldn't resist such a handsome face."

But BJ isn't listening. He's too busy holding up the pair of socks, and grins. "Wonderful! Peg made me socks!"

"Yes," Hawk agrees, sipping his gin. "Lovely, Beej."

Beej rolls his eyes good-naturedly, and then tosses a pair at Hawkeye. "She made them for you too, Hawk."

"Socks from the missus? Thank her for me, but don't give her my love, just yours. I hear she's got a jealous husband." The socks feel like a haymaker to the face, a long distance, five-thousand-mile sucker punch, courtesy of BJ's wife.

"Pass on your own thanks, I have enough to write home about."

"Like what?" Hawk asks, smirking into his gin. "We live in such a quiet neighborhood."

BJ grins back at him. "I'll tell her about you."

Forget a haymaker, Hawkeye feels like he's been shot out of a Howitzer. "Then how hard is it to write in a little thank you note?"

"Write your own damn thank you note!" Beej throws his own pair of socks at Hawkeye.

"I'm not _Charles,_ Beej. Dropped out of finishing school _before_ the class on thank you notes." And then he reaches over, grabbing the pair of Beej's socks that were tossed at him. "And what the hell are these?"

"Those are called socks, Hawkeye. You put them on your feet. We've been over this."

"Jesus, Beej, did she make you socks or a whole new tent? You could sleep five people in here!" He holds up one of the socks, which is a bit large, but will probably fit Beej's giant feet comfortably. "This one's mine, that one is for Charles, and _you_ can keep the Swamp!"

"Gimme those!" Beej made a swipe for the socks, and Hawkeye pulls them away.

"Or what?" he taunts.

"You're really askin' for it, Hawk," Beej threatens before tossing a pillow in his direction.

Hawk barely manages to save his martini, before he tosses the socks back at Beej. Writing a note to Peg would be combining two universes that Hawkeye feels would best be left unmixed.

The Hawk that Beej knows and the Beej that Hawk knows would be out of place in their respective hometowns but are right at home in the Swamp.

"Did Peg send anything else?" he asks, flopping on his cot, and muttering curses under his breath as he spills the rest of his drink on his shirt. "Real alcohol? Your daughter, by parcel post? Or by postal parse?"

It's then that he notices that his hands are shaking. Beej, thankfully doesn't notice, a drink in one hand and the other pawing through Peg's package.

 _How am I jealous of a woman five thousand miles away_? Hawk wonders.

"Ah, she sent chocolate!"

"Did it melt again?"

"It's a little soft, but pretty much whole. Sounds like you, Hawk," Beej teases.

"All the necessities. If she can find a way to send herself, you're all set." Barely into his first drink, and he's already making an jackass of himself.

"Uh huh," Beej agrees absentmindedly.

"Right," Hawkeye grabs the bars. " _You_ can keep the wife, and I'll take the chocolate… inform you that your wife really takes the cake, and if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna take two."

"Take care," Beej calls as Hawk leaves, playing along with Hawk's wordplay, the way he always does. But Hawkeye still lets the door slam on the way out, his mind preoccupied.

In a desperate, gasping way that tastes like the bottom of the still, Hawkeye knows that he loves BJ Hunnicutt, in that messy undefinable way that comes with living in a war zone, where the line between platonic friendship and intimacy is blurred almost to the point of extinction, and you hold on to your best friend tight enough to forget what goes on right outside your door.

And he can't tell anyone about it.

So he just ends up walking right back into the Swamp, pouring himself another drink, and passing one to BJ who is reading through his letters with a gleeful expression that Hawkeye wishes he knew how to put on his face. "Wanna get stinkin' drunk with me, Beej?"

"Is this an attempt to advantage of me Hawk? I'm not a cheap date," Beej tells him, grinning, all white teeth and sunshine, Mill Valley and California shining out of his face, while Hawkeye is very much permanently in Korea; it oozes out of his every pore. _If everyone in California is like you,_ Hawk thinks as he watches him, _maybe I can forget you and find someone else._

"Oh c'mon Beej, I hate to drink alone."

"What are we drinking to?"

"Peg." The word tumbles out of his mouth, and for a second Beej is clearly surprised, because Hawkeye has never shown a hell of a lot of interest in his wife (and all too much interest in her husband), but he holds up his glass.

"To Peg, provider of socks," BJ says with a laugh. He sips his gin and Hawkeye is left with jumbled thoughts and a swallow to forget them with.

And Hawkeye Pierce never, if he can help it, does anything in halves; his laugh could light up the darkest Korean night, his rage could burn down the whole camp, and he loves BJ Hunnicutt with all of his heart.

It's been one too many martinis, and while Hawkeye has been making his usual jokes and flirting with BJ in the only way he knows how, the way he flirts with everyone, the martinis have loosened his tongue, which is why he finds himself staring at BJ's huge feet. "Hey Beej," he says, oddly proud that it's coherent and not slurred. "Why do you have such big feet?"

"What?" Beej asks, and that's all it takes. Hawkeye starts laughing, and then kicks his trusty boot into Beej's foot.

"You have the biggest feet, Beej." He cackles a little, the drunken words rolling off his tongue before he can stop them. "I'm sure with feet that big, you keep your Peggy _very_ happy."

Beej gives him a look, like he's crazy and as the evening and martinis flowed into the night, he's ended up sitting next to Hawkeye, on his footlocker, and it's not the look Hawkeye wants from him. "What?"

"Well, Beej, you know what they say about foot size," he jokes, and BJ leans forward so that they're almost nose to nose, paralyzing Hawk with a sudden rush of anxiety and affection for this drunk, overgrown golden retriever of a man. They sit like that for a second, breathing in each other's stale gin breath.

"What do they say?" Beej slurs, and Hawkeye has to pull away.

"You're a doctor, Beej, you should know this."

"I'm serious, Hawk, what do they say?"

"Well… they… they…" Hawkeye is simultaneously too drunk to deal with this, and definitely not drunk enough to deal with this. "You amaze me. Whoever educated you left out a crucial part! This is an outrage! I have to yell at someone, who? Your father? Your mother? Your father's mother?" He stands up, but Beej tugs on his shirt, pulling him back to the cot.

"Hawk, I'm a doctor. You can tell me." Beej nods seriously for a few seconds, and then grins like an idiot.

"There's… oh to hell with it." He downs the rest of the gin (his sixth? Fifth? He stopped counting around the time Beej moved from his cot to Hawk's footlocker, and within range of Hawkeye "Anything that Moves" Pierce). "There's a… a myth that if you have big feet… then you have a big…" he stammers.

Beej raises his eyes. "A big _what_ , Hawk?"

"A… uh… you know." He can't meet his eyes all of a sudden. "Well you have a kid Beej, you know what the parts involved are, for Pete's sake! Don't make me spell this out!" This conversation cannot be happening, he cannot be talking with his best friend (and occasional love of his life) about his _cock size._

BJ's eyes go wide, and his mouth drops open a little, before he giggles. "Oh." And then he stops. "Oh."

Hawkeye sighs. "I need a drink."

He stands, and Beej is tugging on his shirt again. "Wait a minute, Hawk, why would _you_ care about that?"

And Hawkeye stops in his tracks, frozen. _Shit._ This is going to make him swear off drinking for good, he knows it, because he _cannot_ discuss this, and it's only because he has more gin than blood in his body right now that he even opened his mouth anyway. "Ah…" he starts, and then stops.

Beej is watching him, eyebrows raised, clearly curious. "Hawk? You good?" Because Beej, damn him, knows Hawk better than anyone, and he must be able to tell that Hawkeye is floundering.

Maybe it's the martinis or maybe it's the recklessness of war that loosens his tongue and makes him change the subject. He turns back to him, and says something like "I'm sorry you aren't with Peg, Beej. But I'm not sorry too, because I really like you Beej, and I know that you have Peg and Erin at home, and I have my dad, but… over here, you're all I've got, and you're my… my person."

Beej blinks, and Hawkeye realizes that he actually said all of that out loud. And instead of a thousand things Beej could say in response to Hawkeye's complicated mess of a statement, he says simply, "Keep a secret, Hawk? You're my person too."

And Hawkeye… well he _melts._

He thinks sometimes about how if it wasn't for the war, he never would have met BJ. BJ, the sunny California, uncomplicated family man, who somehow balances out the cynical Maine mess of a womanizer Hawkeye knows himself to be. They are from opposite coasts and different lifestyles and somewhere in between the cynic and the family man, somewhere in between Mill Valley and Crabapple Cove 3000 miles apart, they have found their middle ground in Korea, in a tiny tent on a hot night.

"But Peg…" he starts.

"Peg isn't here, Hawk. You are. You see… that," he says, gesturing beyond the canvas walls of the Swamp. His hand lands on Hawk's thigh. "She's at home, and she's my home person. But you're my person here."

"Beej, you're drunk," he mumbles.

"So are you, Hawk, and you don't see me complaining."

"But I'm always drunk. It's half my personality. You on the other hand… I can taste the gin on your breath from here."

"How can you? You're not anywhere near my mouth," Beej says.

"I'd like to be," Hawk says, and immediately freezes. Time stops, the way it does sometimes when the shells are falling, the moment just before your life ends, and Hawkeye is certain that his has just ended. They can recover from a conversation about "foot size", and a conversation about Beej being Hawk's person, but this is teetering on the edge of a precipice, dangling from a point of no return.

"Aw Hawk," Beej says, and his voice is all sappy and teasing. "Are you in love?"

Hawkeye knows that they're both drunk, and that's probably why he answers, "Oh you know me, Beej, I'm a little bit in love with everyone."

"Ha." Beej snorts. "You aren't a _little_ bit anything."

Hawkeye doesn't do anything by halves and he realizes a bit too late that of course Beej knows this, that Beej knows _him._ And there are a hundred thousand things he could say in this moment, but instead he meet's Beej's eyes. "And what's that supposed to mean, Beej?"

"I'm saying that I know you, stupid."

"Oh you sure know how to flatter a guy." They're a little too close for comfort, and Hawkeye can smell the harsh army soap Beej used to shower, and the ever-present smell of gin on his breath.

"You're a little bit in love with everyone," Beej says.

"I don't do things in increments, Beej," he says, aware that he's staring at Beej's stupid, cheesy mustache, and his stupid cheesy grin, and wanting to kiss that smile right off his stupid face. "But sure, we'll go with that."

"Are you saying that you're a little more in love with some people than others?" Beej asks.

"Definitely," Hawkeye says with a nod. "We all know I love Hot Lips. And I definitely love Klinger, I mean I'd probably kiss him if I could get past his nose… we can't forget the nurses, I've given them a lot of loving, and then there's Charles and his beautiful bald head-,"

"Geez, Hawk, do you ever stop talking?"

"It's my default setting."

Beej shakes his head. "Yep, that's my Hawkeye. You could probably talk your way out of a court-martial."

"More like seven. Roughly."

Beej blinks. "What?"

"Apparently I have a disregard for authority."

"Remember folks, you heard it here last," Beej mumbles into his martini.

"Hey, don't pin this all on me!" Hawk warns, pointing at him. "If I recall, you aren't exactly gonna be mentioned in Mulcahy's next sermon as anything other than a cautionary tale!"

"What can I say, Hawk? You corrupted me."

"Well I have to be good for something around here," Hawk tells him. "My expertise is not merely limited to brilliant surgery, but I am also an excellent means of corruption, extant."

BJ grins that stupid grin of his, listening to Hawk's awful impression of Winchester, and leans in again, both too close and not close enough. "Admit it, Hawk old chap, I'm too good for you."

"I'll admit that any day. You _are_ too good for me, Hunnicutt. You are, to borrow a three-dollar word from Charles, a truly smashing fellow."

BJ laughs and matches him imitation for imitation. "You are a corking fellow yourself, my dear Captain Pierce."

Hawkeye is sure that when he's sober, he's sure to marvel that Beej imitating Charles just makes Hawk love him _more_. Which is a bit worrying, because what does that say about his feelings for Charles? Or does he just love seeing Beej acting silly? "Careful there, Beej. Just because you've got the right size feet, doesn't mean you actually have to be a clown."

"What is it with you and my feet, Hawk? First that thing about foot size, and now you're making fun of them!"

"Aw c'mon Beej, I didn't mean to step on any toes," Hawk says, before dissolving into helpless giggling. "Or get off on the wrong foot." He tries to contain his laughter, but whoops all the same, hoping Charles doesn't wake up and shout at them.

"You're this drunk, and still making bad jokes? Quite the feat," Beej tells him, and soon they're leaning against each other, laughing. Then Beej raises his head, meeting Hawk's eyes and grins. Something about this smile is different, and Hawkeye gets just how Beej won Peg over: he smiled. "Y'know Hawkeye, you really know how to sweep someone off their feet."

It's a pun, but the mood has shifted, and Hawkeye's breath catches in his throat. "Beej," he tries, but can't help it. He and Beej are staring at each other, and they both start to lean in.

Their lips touch, and then Beej's hands are on his face. It's a kiss that, if Hawk were standing, would make him weak at the knees. Kissing Beej is sunshine and gin, the feeling of a winning hand in a poker game and the satisfaction of saving a life, and it's _exhilarating._

Of course, Hawkeye has considered kissing BJ, but not like this, when they're into their seventh round of martinis and BJ is about two martinis away from crying (he's a mushy drunk, who cries out the alcohol and still wakes up hungover. Hawkeye goes to bed drunk and wakes up angry and the cycle repeats every day he's stuck in Korea). Charles went to bed hours ago, which is good because he'd have at least a dozen three-dollar words for how stupid Hawkeye is being, kissing his best friend not out of a fit of fear or drunken revelry, but in a burst of overwhelming love for his best friend, and if BJ remembers this tomorrow, he'll wake up with a hangover and more than a few regrets.

And Hawkeye thinks bitterly to himself, even as BJ pulls away with a stupid drunken grin that's just begging for him to kiss it off his smug face, that while Charles can think of a billion synonyms for stupid, Hawkeye can think of a synonym for love, and that is BJ's face.

"Y'know Beej," he says, as he pours them both another martini. "I think I'd still like you just as much even without the big feet." Hawkeye can never stop talking, but as he hands over the drink, he knows that making another joke is the right move.

Beej looks thoughtful for a second, and then nods. "And I'd still like you as much if we hadn't met here."

"Me too, Beej. Sure am glad we met though."

"I'll drink to that."

The clink of their martini glasses is loud in the still of the night, and all their cards are on the table, and in hindsight, Hawkeye thinks, he has Peg to thank for an oasis of peace in the middle of a war.


End file.
